by RWC 26 Replies latest watchtower bible
You believe without evidence, and think that such gullibility - or faith, if you prefer - will guarantee you salvation from something which your religion invented in the first place.
Great quote. May have to consider adding this to my sig!
BTW, Happy Ostara everyone!
A fanatic is one who, upon losing sight of his goals, redoubles his efforts.
--George Santayana
Sargon
very sorry,I gave you the idea that I thought you were yet affiliated with JWs. I enjoy the few voices of reason attempting to help disillusioned JWs make sense of their experience.
The real evil is Bibical literalism isn't it,not any one particular sect.Every brand of religion has skeletons in the closet.Every organization has assholes. Confusion,separatism,belligerence,and inflexiblity are symptoms of a much larger disease.I appreciate your comments, You don't pretend to help an alcoholic with liver damage by convincing them the problem is their brand of beer.
Funkyderek,
When a person becomes a Christian he learns that it becomes his responsibility to forgive those who he has wronged and to ask for forgiveness for his own sins. He should be concerned with you forgiving him simply because he chose to believe. The true act of understanding the Christian faith is to understand that we are all sinners in need of forgiveness. By accepting the sacrifice of his Son, are sins are forgiven and we are reconciled with God.
You are wrong in your assumption that I believe without evidence. The evidence is more than suffcicient for me and billions around the globe. That evidence has been discussed in other threads throughout this board but if you want to engage it again I will be happy to do so.
Peacefulpete, I do not always agree with what you say, but I will say that I enjoy your posts. They are insightful and balanced. I do agree that if religion becomes more important that the ultimate goal of Christianity that we will have lost site of the true mission. That would be like tyelling an alchololic that his problem is his choice of Beer.
RWC
Tell me please in which thread you revealed your evidence for belief.I would like to address one scientific proof at a time.
By accepting the sacrifice of his Son, are sins are forgiven and we are reconciled with God.
That seems like a rather arbitrary way of forgiving sins. I only forgive people who have sinned against me if they repent of their sins. Of course, people can only sin against me by actually doing something that violates my rights, whereas people can apparently sin against your god simply by existing. I suppose, if you have an arbitrary and absurd standard for what qualifies as sin then you can have an equally arbitrary and absurd qualification for forgiveness. I prefer to be more reasonable than that. I can't and won't play by the wacky rules your god has devised.
You are wrong in your assumption that I believe without evidence. The evidence is more than suffcicient for me and billions around the globe.Billions? I don't think so. Doesn't make it true in any case. The "Appeal to Popularity" fallacy is discussed at http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/pop.htm
--
Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. - Jack Handey, Deep Thoughts
Funky
Thanks for the link on logical fallacies,neat reference.I have seen where I have been guilty of using some of these techniques with out even being aware of it.Good for all of us to refer to once in awhile.Carl Sagan's Baloney detector is not as extensive but very succinct.Just search:Baloney Detector
PeacefulPete, I have not yet figured out how to go back to old threads. I will post them in a new thread.
FunkyDerek,
Earlier I indicated that you are making a choice not to believe. Your last post makes that clear. That is your choice. I did not mention that Billions believed in God for the point of saying that makes it right, only to point out that the evidence that we say proves his existence is sufficient for billions of people. You want more more, or choose to ignore the evidence that is there.
From the Christian worldview we understand that man, through rebelling against God seperating us from him. The Bible says we are all born as sinners. Whether that is considered an original sin, or just the propensity to sin through our lifetime is not really the issue. You stated that you have wronged people in your past, so even if you were perfect until the first time you did that, you are now a sinner and have seperated yourself from God. Jesus, through his death and sacrifice has paid the price for that sin and reconciled you to God, if you believe in him. Giving you something that you do not deserve and can never earn is not arbitrary, it is loving and beautiful. But is not forced upon you, you make the choice.
I started this thread by extending the peace of this holy week to everyone and I repeat that now. God Bless to all of you.
